As enterprises increasingly rely on and store large amounts of information in their day-to-day operations, database replication and recovery has become increasingly important. Failure of a database may result in significant losses of productivity and/or significant financial losses. Thus, the true cost of a database failure may be proportional to the amount of time the database is unavailable. Accordingly, timely recovery of failed databases may be critical for many enterprises.
One traditional method of replicating databases may include maintaining a primary database on a primary server and a standby database on a standby server. In this method, the standby database is structurally identical to the primary database and is kept synchronized with the primary database. In the event of a failure of the primary database, the standby database may take on the role of the primary database. Unfortunately, maintaining active standby databases and servers using this method may be costly.
Another method of replicating databases may include replicating the volumes that store databases. For example, a database may be stored to volumes on a primary server, using this method the volumes on the primary server may be replicated to volumes on a secondary server. In the event of a failure of the database on the primary server, the database may be brought online on the secondary server. Unfortunately, this method of replicating databases has traditionally required that all data associated with the database (e.g., data files, transaction logs, archived transaction logs, control files, etc.) be replicated to the secondary server even though much of this data may be redundant. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved systems and methods for enabling database disaster recovery using replicated volumes.